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iron man 3
6 May 2013 05:06 amBEWARE OF SPOILERS BELOW
Watched Iron Man 3 a couple of days ago, and in some ways it's better than I expected. It's somewhat like the feel of The Avengers, in that despite its multiple imperfections, it's a far more enjoyable product than the sum of its parts.
There's no arguing that the Iron Man franchise is the international money horse of the Disney/Marvel-owned cinema universe (in distinction from the Sony-owned Spiderman who due to these factors is unable to join the Avengers on their foray despite being a key member of the team). One can argue that without the success of the first Iron Man, there would be no Marvel cinema universe...and perhaps there would be no rekindling of RDJ's career.
It's worthy to note that RDJ's contract with Marvel actually ends with this movie, so he is not contractually obliged to continue his stint as Tony Stark, though he clearly is very fond of the character.
Assuming that this is RDJ's final outing (as unlikely as it seems at this point), I think it makes a good final installment of a trilogy - or perhaps in all, Tony's 5th official appearance.
I was a bit hesitant about the news of Shane Black directing. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was critically acclaimed, but I thought the flavour was too macabre and cynical for Marvel. The feeling of KKBB is like a dark fairytale, like maybe the original Grimm tales, full of gore and betrayal and happy endings at a Pyrrhic price.
In that respect, I was wrong. And as Shane Black and RDJ promised, the third movie stripped down the superfluous action and got closer to Stark's vulnerabilities. The script reads tighter than IM2, though the awkward ad-libbing is still obvious in some scenes. It doesn't quite reduce Stark to the level of helplessness in IM1, but it puts him in a tight spot for most of the movie and allows for an easy flow of an abundance of well-choreographed action scenes.
It was also nice to see a continuation of The Avengers storyline. Several of the pre-Avengers movies were accused of being too light on its own plot and too heavy on hinting to the combined movie. IM3 is fortunate in that it's the first movie to follow The Avengers and it doesn't need to carry the mantle of building up the Avengers' second outing. All it needs to do is acknowledge that Manhattan had happened, and it does so nicely by extending Tony's range of emotions and hence actually requiring RDJ to do some of his excellent acting.
In fact, as the story flows, we forget to wonder why Iron Man didn't call for help from the Avengers. For Tony Stark, his fight has always been personal. When Captain America stood on the Helicarrier and accused him of fighting only for himself...there was no argument. Tony is not a soldier or a mercenary, he's a self-made vigilante who would never drag other people into his personal battles.
One thing Shane Black excels at is creating some very dimensional characters. Despite a large number of new characters introduced into the cast, many of them are quite memorable, and yet the old characters are still further developed.
Pepper Potts manages to be amazing in this movie. She's not the helpless damsel-in-distress she's always been, but a totally kick-ass woman in her own right. Gwyneth Paltrow has been saying for a while (since completing filming) that she wanted to leave the franchise, but apart from replacing her I don't see them writing Pepper out of the picture. This version of Tony is far too attached to her, and he'll just have a major meltdown if anything happens.
SPOILER ALERT FOR THE NEXT BIT
Now, onto the flaws, and there's a few. Firstly, the trailers are pretty misleading, though that in itself is not necessarily a flaw. But the trailer gave the impression that the Mandarin was the major villain in this movie...when in actual fact, he's not, and that is a pity.
Sir Ben Kingsley is an amazing actor, who can turn from a threatening dictatorial presence to a doddering old junkie in the next, so it seems an enormous pity that the plot wastes his talent in revealing the Mandarin as nothing but a mannequin. In the comics, the Mandarin is Iron Man's greatest nemesis. He is to Tony Stark what Loki is to Thor (though obviously...different in many ways). I do hope he makes a reappearance at some point...and that brings me to the second point.
Aldritch Killian is too weak as a villain. Oh, physically he is almost invincible, sort of like a conveniently more destructible version of the Wolverine. But as far as villains go, Iron Man has had a run of three poor villains. The first was motivated by greed, the second by revenge, and this guy by...what? Both? Tony Stark still stands as the most visible superhero within the Marvel cinematic universe. He is a weapon-maker who spouts ideals of peace and green-love and all things, that would to a cynical eye look, hypocritical. It is time that he meets someone who can match, not only his cleverness and strength, but who can also shred his flimsy ideology to the rubbish it's worth. People adore him because he wins...but what happens when he loses, will his ideology still look so appealing then? That would be very interesting to explore and I think it should take someone like the Mandarin to test his mettle.
Thirdly, while the action scenes are very fun to watch, there's a lot of flaws abound. The logic of the suits and of the Extremis virus haven't been planned that well, and the abilities of each armour unit and each Extremis host vary wildly from scene to scene, from battle to battle. The thing about video games is that it doesn't just have to look cool, there has to be rules and the rules have to be enforced. IM3's most visible flaw is that no one's bothered to think of the rules and as a result there is a movie filled with enemies that would be indestructible up until the moment they're dispatched with one simple blast.
Aldritch Killian and the Mandarin were not the only ones who were slighted in their development. I expected more of Rebecca Hall's character...but she didn't last long. And despite her being pretty spunky and Pepper being actually cool, the movie still failed the Bechdel test.
It was a very enjoyable movie, and it amended at least one flaw of the previous Iron Man movies, which was that the climax here actually deserved to be called a climax. What it would benefit from is actually finding some villains with good ideological conviction. Other than that, the logic of the suits and the powers of the Extremis hosts could have done with some more thought...because it does get distracting eventually.
Watched Iron Man 3 a couple of days ago, and in some ways it's better than I expected. It's somewhat like the feel of The Avengers, in that despite its multiple imperfections, it's a far more enjoyable product than the sum of its parts.
There's no arguing that the Iron Man franchise is the international money horse of the Disney/Marvel-owned cinema universe (in distinction from the Sony-owned Spiderman who due to these factors is unable to join the Avengers on their foray despite being a key member of the team). One can argue that without the success of the first Iron Man, there would be no Marvel cinema universe...and perhaps there would be no rekindling of RDJ's career.
It's worthy to note that RDJ's contract with Marvel actually ends with this movie, so he is not contractually obliged to continue his stint as Tony Stark, though he clearly is very fond of the character.
Assuming that this is RDJ's final outing (as unlikely as it seems at this point), I think it makes a good final installment of a trilogy - or perhaps in all, Tony's 5th official appearance.
I was a bit hesitant about the news of Shane Black directing. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was critically acclaimed, but I thought the flavour was too macabre and cynical for Marvel. The feeling of KKBB is like a dark fairytale, like maybe the original Grimm tales, full of gore and betrayal and happy endings at a Pyrrhic price.
In that respect, I was wrong. And as Shane Black and RDJ promised, the third movie stripped down the superfluous action and got closer to Stark's vulnerabilities. The script reads tighter than IM2, though the awkward ad-libbing is still obvious in some scenes. It doesn't quite reduce Stark to the level of helplessness in IM1, but it puts him in a tight spot for most of the movie and allows for an easy flow of an abundance of well-choreographed action scenes.
It was also nice to see a continuation of The Avengers storyline. Several of the pre-Avengers movies were accused of being too light on its own plot and too heavy on hinting to the combined movie. IM3 is fortunate in that it's the first movie to follow The Avengers and it doesn't need to carry the mantle of building up the Avengers' second outing. All it needs to do is acknowledge that Manhattan had happened, and it does so nicely by extending Tony's range of emotions and hence actually requiring RDJ to do some of his excellent acting.
In fact, as the story flows, we forget to wonder why Iron Man didn't call for help from the Avengers. For Tony Stark, his fight has always been personal. When Captain America stood on the Helicarrier and accused him of fighting only for himself...there was no argument. Tony is not a soldier or a mercenary, he's a self-made vigilante who would never drag other people into his personal battles.
One thing Shane Black excels at is creating some very dimensional characters. Despite a large number of new characters introduced into the cast, many of them are quite memorable, and yet the old characters are still further developed.
Pepper Potts manages to be amazing in this movie. She's not the helpless damsel-in-distress she's always been, but a totally kick-ass woman in her own right. Gwyneth Paltrow has been saying for a while (since completing filming) that she wanted to leave the franchise, but apart from replacing her I don't see them writing Pepper out of the picture. This version of Tony is far too attached to her, and he'll just have a major meltdown if anything happens.
SPOILER ALERT FOR THE NEXT BIT
Now, onto the flaws, and there's a few. Firstly, the trailers are pretty misleading, though that in itself is not necessarily a flaw. But the trailer gave the impression that the Mandarin was the major villain in this movie...when in actual fact, he's not, and that is a pity.
Sir Ben Kingsley is an amazing actor, who can turn from a threatening dictatorial presence to a doddering old junkie in the next, so it seems an enormous pity that the plot wastes his talent in revealing the Mandarin as nothing but a mannequin. In the comics, the Mandarin is Iron Man's greatest nemesis. He is to Tony Stark what Loki is to Thor (though obviously...different in many ways). I do hope he makes a reappearance at some point...and that brings me to the second point.
Aldritch Killian is too weak as a villain. Oh, physically he is almost invincible, sort of like a conveniently more destructible version of the Wolverine. But as far as villains go, Iron Man has had a run of three poor villains. The first was motivated by greed, the second by revenge, and this guy by...what? Both? Tony Stark still stands as the most visible superhero within the Marvel cinematic universe. He is a weapon-maker who spouts ideals of peace and green-love and all things, that would to a cynical eye look, hypocritical. It is time that he meets someone who can match, not only his cleverness and strength, but who can also shred his flimsy ideology to the rubbish it's worth. People adore him because he wins...but what happens when he loses, will his ideology still look so appealing then? That would be very interesting to explore and I think it should take someone like the Mandarin to test his mettle.
Thirdly, while the action scenes are very fun to watch, there's a lot of flaws abound. The logic of the suits and of the Extremis virus haven't been planned that well, and the abilities of each armour unit and each Extremis host vary wildly from scene to scene, from battle to battle. The thing about video games is that it doesn't just have to look cool, there has to be rules and the rules have to be enforced. IM3's most visible flaw is that no one's bothered to think of the rules and as a result there is a movie filled with enemies that would be indestructible up until the moment they're dispatched with one simple blast.
Aldritch Killian and the Mandarin were not the only ones who were slighted in their development. I expected more of Rebecca Hall's character...but she didn't last long. And despite her being pretty spunky and Pepper being actually cool, the movie still failed the Bechdel test.
It was a very enjoyable movie, and it amended at least one flaw of the previous Iron Man movies, which was that the climax here actually deserved to be called a climax. What it would benefit from is actually finding some villains with good ideological conviction. Other than that, the logic of the suits and the powers of the Extremis hosts could have done with some more thought...because it does get distracting eventually.
